The Lighting Emitting Diode (LED) lighting industry is a fast growing market. LED lighting offers a strong value proposition as a lighting solution by reducing maintenance expense and lowering energy requirements for lighting systems while not producing hazardous materials. As such, traditional lighting original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) continue to adopt the LED light source for typical lighting applications. However the lack of standardization in the industry and special requirements for powering and controlling LED systems are a barrier to entry. There currently exists no LED “bulb” that provides adequate illumination as a light source. Most fixture manufacturers create new or retrofit existing luminaries to accommodate LED light sources. These LED light sources require proper thermal management and optical design. In addition to the overall mechanics, the electrical requirements of an LED source may be demanding. The LED is a low voltage DC device and sensitive to voltage and current fluctuations.
Some companies have developed packaged drivers, “LED Drivers”, for LED luminaries. These LED drivers are essentially constant current power supplies configured to provide a set current value to the LEDs despite the input voltage to the luminaire. For example, an LED driver may take a 120VAC input and provide a 350 mA constant current output. In addition to these packaged “LED Drivers,” other semiconductor OEMs are developing LED Driver “chips.” These LED chips are integrated circuits that may be incorporated at the board level to integrate sensing technology and digital or analog input for providing power to the LED luminaire.
There are two typical LED driver customers. The first is what may be considered a traditional lighting OEM customer. These traditional OEM companies have specialized in packaging to incorporate standard ballasts and bulbs into metal and plastic housings with all components being plug and play and typically color coded. In most cases, this type of LED customer uses the traditional ballast style “LED Driver” packaged such that wire leads may be easily connected to predefined inputs and outputs. The second type of customer is one who understands electronic design and designs a printed circuit board (“PCB”) that will accommodate an LED driver chip. This type of customer will specifically customize the PCB for the target application.
It is unlikely to find these two types of customers are one in the same. As such, the LED OEM driver typically provides either the simple plug and play LED driver or a customized LED driver solution. The first type of customer uses the simple LED Driver plug and play solution that provides conventional and convenient means of hookup. However, these plug and play solutions offer no means of advanced lighting control, such as flashing sequences, color mixing, etc. The second type of customer may obtain an advanced control solution but through the integration of highly sophisticated control system in which the programming is done at the job site such that sequencing and effects may be achieved at the control panel level. However, these integrated systems are complex, require much setup, customized for every job, and are expensive such that only the highest end applications receive such integration.